God has everything, but He does not NEED anything. He is self-sufficient and perfect. To experience changing thoughts, feelings, acts, relations, love, creativity, etc. is not a technical need. It is simply the glorious, perfect reality of any personal being, including God. Jesus is the PERFECT God-Man. He is God with a face. He GREW (= change, by definition) spiritually, intellectually, physically, socially (Luke 2:52). These changes did not make Him imperfect. God the Father did not change as a man, but the principle also applies to Him. There are some ways He changes (relations, communication, fellowship, experiences of changing reality, etc.) without becoming less than perfect. He does not change in His essential uncreated being/attributes/character. He does change in relation to external realities that He created. When a baby is conceived and born, this is new reality for the parents and God that did not co-exist with God from eternity past. It is a new object of knowledge that was once possible and is now actual. Your root assumptions about God and change are flawed.
Open Theism Stirs Controversy on College Campuses
- Thread starter Christine
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AiryStottel
New member
12/26/04 My reply
TO godrulz
I can see the sincerity in your reply, but you continue to make additional blasphemous statements, through ignorance I am sure.
YOU WROTE:
Pinnock: "Aspects of the future, being unsettled, are not yet wholly known, even to God. It does not mean that God is ignorant of something He ought to know, but that many things in the future are only possible and not yet actual. Therefore, He correctly knows them as possible and not actual."
MY RESPONSE:
Did you know that God is pure act? Do you know what pure act means? It means there is no potentiality in God. Find me a theologian who says otherwise, and I’ll show you a phoney theologian. Your assumptions based on someone’s blasphemous description of God’s nature are unsupportable.
To compound the felony, you add two more blasphemous statements, namely:
“As omnipotence is limited by the possible, so omniscience is limited by the knowable.”
My friend, God is absolutely omnipotent, meaning infinitely powerful, not semi-infinitely powerful, and God has infinite knowledge, not semi-infinite knowledge. There are no limits on what is infinite. God has no limits, no bounds, and no equals. To say limits can be placed on God, is blasphemous, to say that God can do what is contrary to God’s nature is equally blasphemous.
If you are truly searching for the one true God, then I will respond to any honest arguments you present.
Bye,
Airy
TO godrulz
I can see the sincerity in your reply, but you continue to make additional blasphemous statements, through ignorance I am sure.
YOU WROTE:
Pinnock: "Aspects of the future, being unsettled, are not yet wholly known, even to God. It does not mean that God is ignorant of something He ought to know, but that many things in the future are only possible and not yet actual. Therefore, He correctly knows them as possible and not actual."
MY RESPONSE:
Did you know that God is pure act? Do you know what pure act means? It means there is no potentiality in God. Find me a theologian who says otherwise, and I’ll show you a phoney theologian. Your assumptions based on someone’s blasphemous description of God’s nature are unsupportable.
To compound the felony, you add two more blasphemous statements, namely:
“As omnipotence is limited by the possible, so omniscience is limited by the knowable.”
My friend, God is absolutely omnipotent, meaning infinitely powerful, not semi-infinitely powerful, and God has infinite knowledge, not semi-infinite knowledge. There are no limits on what is infinite. God has no limits, no bounds, and no equals. To say limits can be placed on God, is blasphemous, to say that God can do what is contrary to God’s nature is equally blasphemous.
If you are truly searching for the one true God, then I will respond to any honest arguments you present.
Bye,
Airy
You have adopted a narrow, Greek philosophical view on the nature of God. "The Untamed God" by Jay Wesley Richards wrestles with the Scriptural and philosophical views surrounding God's perfection, simplicity, and immutability. There is more to the story than accepting assumptions uncritically.
What Pinnock meant by limits on God's omnipotence is that God cannot create a square circle, He cannot make Himself uncreated, He cannot create a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it. Atheists who suggest the latter, simply are proposing an absurd, self-contradictory test. It is not a slam on God's omnipotence, but a slam on our intelligence to propose stupid, illogical questions. There are absolutes in God's universe. He cannot incarnate as Jesus and in a woman's body at the same time. He cannot incarnate in 4 B.C. and return after His death and resurrection in 2004 A.D. +? at the same instant in space-time history. This is not a limitation on God, but an illogical understanding of God's nature and reality. 2+2=4. It does not limit God's power because He cannot logically make 2+2=4 and 2+2=24 at the same time in an ordered universe that reflects His intelligence. Jesus cannot be God in the flesh and a created, finite angel at the same time. His reality is that He is not a created angel, but He is the Creator of angels. This truth displays His essential glory and cannot be argued to be a limitation on omnipotence (which you logically seem to think it would be according to your rules and definitions of limits and the unlimited).
What is your religious background? Is there a reason you refuse to answer? Do you speculate philosophically about God without knowing Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?
What Pinnock meant by limits on God's omnipotence is that God cannot create a square circle, He cannot make Himself uncreated, He cannot create a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it. Atheists who suggest the latter, simply are proposing an absurd, self-contradictory test. It is not a slam on God's omnipotence, but a slam on our intelligence to propose stupid, illogical questions. There are absolutes in God's universe. He cannot incarnate as Jesus and in a woman's body at the same time. He cannot incarnate in 4 B.C. and return after His death and resurrection in 2004 A.D. +? at the same instant in space-time history. This is not a limitation on God, but an illogical understanding of God's nature and reality. 2+2=4. It does not limit God's power because He cannot logically make 2+2=4 and 2+2=24 at the same time in an ordered universe that reflects His intelligence. Jesus cannot be God in the flesh and a created, finite angel at the same time. His reality is that He is not a created angel, but He is the Creator of angels. This truth displays His essential glory and cannot be argued to be a limitation on omnipotence (which you logically seem to think it would be according to your rules and definitions of limits and the unlimited).
What is your religious background? Is there a reason you refuse to answer? Do you speculate philosophically about God without knowing Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?
AiryStottel
New member
To godrulz,
You are not going to get away that easy. Here is your quote from Pinnock:
"Aspects of the future, being unsettled, are not yet wholly known, even to God. It does not mean that God is ignorant of something He ought to know, but that many things in the future are only possible and not yet actual. Therefore, He correctly knows them as possible and not actual."
Your explanation of what Pinnock said is disingenuous. His statement says that there are aspects of the future ....not yet wholly known, even to God. That is blasphemy and you know it.
If you want to continue this debate, then be honest about what you are doing and don’t try to bend, twist, and distort every which way possible, what is being said on one side or the other. Blasphemy is something that God will not tolerate . . . ever....and neither will I.
Bye,
Airy
P.S. Let’s not make up rules as we go as you have just done. You cannot castle if you have already moved the king. You want to castle even though you previously moved the king AND the rook. Shame on you.
You are not going to get away that easy. Here is your quote from Pinnock:
"Aspects of the future, being unsettled, are not yet wholly known, even to God. It does not mean that God is ignorant of something He ought to know, but that many things in the future are only possible and not yet actual. Therefore, He correctly knows them as possible and not actual."
Your explanation of what Pinnock said is disingenuous. His statement says that there are aspects of the future ....not yet wholly known, even to God. That is blasphemy and you know it.
If you want to continue this debate, then be honest about what you are doing and don’t try to bend, twist, and distort every which way possible, what is being said on one side or the other. Blasphemy is something that God will not tolerate . . . ever....and neither will I.
Bye,
Airy
P.S. Let’s not make up rules as we go as you have just done. You cannot castle if you have already moved the king. You want to castle even though you previously moved the king AND the rook. Shame on you.
You wrongly assume that the future has already happened and is an object of knowledge. If omniscience is knowing all that is knowable (cf. omnipotence is doing all that is doable...you have not refuted the logic laws that prove that if A is non-B, then A cannot be B at the same time), then the issue is what is logically an object of knowledge. Time is unidirectional moving from the potential future into the fixed past. The future is not there, so not knowing it is not a limitation on omniscience. Are you saying that the Second Coming of Christ has happened and that it happened before creation, incarnation, and resurrection? It is self-evident that this concept is non-sensical. God correctly knows reality as it is based on objective truth. He can distinguish the past, present, and future and necessary, contingent, actual/certain (we can, so why can't God? Are we greater than God?).
It is not blasphemous to accurately represent the revelation of God. It is blasphemous to claim to be God if you are not (Jesus was falsely accused of this) or to say God is an idol, etc. To wrestle with the nature of His creation, free will, predestination, etc. is the glory of a king to search out knowledge. You do not understand the alternate view well enough to interact with the strengths of its logic. You are rejecting a straw man caricature of the Open View, as do many traditional Calvinists, etc. They wrongly accuse the view of being process thought or finitism. In fact, it upholds the great truths of God's infinite glories and absolutes of wonder.
Why do you avoid sharing your influences and biases? Would it affect your credibility? The real issue is what we do with the person and work of Christ, not whether God knows amd experiences the future exhaustively ('eternal now') or as an open possibility full of adventure and wonder (everlasting duration).
I am not ignorant of these terms and I only told you to go away if you are unwilling to address specific points that people have raised!
The idea that these are NOT contradictions has been proposed by Clete in post #458, by Knight in #459 and by godrulz in #469 I afirm and agree with their arguments! The only thing you have done to refute them is to imply that your understanding is greater than ours!
I have asked for no such thing!
I am not angry! I am not ranting and raving or pounding on the keyboard! I disagree with you and I have asked you to I am simply asking you to refute posts #458 #459 and #469 with somthing more substancial than saying they don't make sense!
It's a theory actually. Not something I hold to completely. But I can find scripture for it.
AiryHead-
Did God create the universe, and everything in it? Yes, or no?
Did God create the universe, and everything in it? Yes, or no?
I've been out of town for most of the last 48 hours and have missed a lot! Please be patient while I try to get caught up!
Now, I have clearly and directly answered you questions. Quid pro quo Airy; your turn....
Has God always been a man?
Has God ever been a man?
Is God a man today?
Has God ever died?
Is God dead now?
In what way is it possible to reconcile the incarnation, crucifixion, burial and resurrection with the idea that God is utterly immutable?
Resting in Him,
Clete
I answered the question! Yes! Of course God is perfect.
This is not logically sound. A change (as I have already explained) is not necessarily for the better or for the worse and Aristotle reasoned. Some things change because of the nature of that thing in which case for it not to change would indicate an imperfection. Any living thing that does not change in at least some important ways, is anything but perfect.
Would a perfect rocket scientist ever change?
It was an example of apples to oranges, which again, I have already explained. God is not an inanimate object and thus your "example" is fundamentally flawed.
This was stated to insinuate that I am ignorant and that you are the great teacher. You are as arrogant as anyone on this board, not to mention a hypocrite.
God is both mutable and absolutely perfect.
I don't know who the crap you think you are buster brown but I recommend you get right down off you high horse and stop talking down to me. I've already defeated you in this debate about six times and you just gleefully ignore every point I make. Continue like this for much longer and you'll make my ignore list fast than anyone in TOL history. I'm a pretty patient guy most of the time but I am not stupid, nor will I be treated as such by you or anyone else. If I am wrong, show me. If you cannot then say so and then go to your quiet place and think long and hard about what it means that you cannot answer the question of someone who has not had one single minute of formal Bible training, doesn't know Greek or Hebrew, doesn't pastor a church or even teach a Sunday school class.
Now, I have clearly and directly answered you questions. Quid pro quo Airy; your turn....
Has God always been a man?
Has God ever been a man?
Is God a man today?
Has God ever died?
Is God dead now?
In what way is it possible to reconcile the incarnation, crucifixion, burial and resurrection with the idea that God is utterly immutable?
Resting in Him,
Clete
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Based on grammar in John (same sentence), if punishment is not eternal, than neither is eternal life forever. Verses in Revelation are interesting in that the beast and false prophet are still in torment after 1000 years when Satan joins them in the lake of fire. Then they will be tormented forever and ever with those who hate God.
We might clarify that God is immutable in some senses, but changes in other senses.
His uncreated attributes do not change. His moral character is consistent. However, His experiences and relations do change. These are outside of His being, but they do affect Him personally. When God said creation was 'very good', He had a certain inner disposition. When man fell, He was grieved and regretted making man. This was a change in His inner disposition without making Him imperfect or changing His essential character and attributes. An absolutely changeless personal being is no better than an impersonal rock.
Even classicaL theologians are moving away from strong immutability and impassibility. It does not do justice to the revelation of the Living God in Scripture.
Me thinks you are stuck in the stone age (pun intended), while you think we are moving into heresy.
Are you a believer in Christ or a mere student of abstract philosophy, Airy?
Balder
New member
Are God's characteristics contingent? Is God dependent upon Creation for any of his essential attributes? For instance, what about holiness: in the Hebrew understanding, holiness means something set apart, something removed from the "common." How can God be "set apart" prior to the existence of anything mundane from which to be removed? Similarly, how can God be all-knowing prior to there being an "all" -- a phenomenal world of discrete things which can be known by a subject? Prior to creation, was God neither holy nor all-knowing?
Before creation, God knew all that was knowable and was essentially righteous and holy.
God is uncreated. His metaphysical attributes (eternal, omnipotent, triune, omniscient, omnipresent) are who He is and has always been. His character (faithfulness, holiness, love, etc.) are in the realm of morals. He always choses the good, wise, and right, consistent with His eternal nature. His personal attributes (will, intellect, emotions) have always been with the eternal God.
We are not God. We do not share His essential, eternal, uncreated metaphysical attributes. We are in the personal and moral image of God. We can reflect these character traits though without the perfection that God has. We can be loving, faithful, holy, etc. We cannot be uncreated and omniscient.
We do not want to confuse the Creator with the creature, but we are personal and moral beings. We are not gods. He is infinite; we are finite.
AiryStottel
New member
12/26/04
To godrulz
Once again, you try to obfuscate the issue. Perhaps if you understood what omniscient means, you wouldn’t be making blasphemous statements.
From Webster’s dictionary:
Main Entry: om·ni·scient
Pronunciation: -sh&nt
Function: adjective
Etymology: New Latin omniscient-, omnisciens, back-formation from Medieval Latin omniscientia
1 : having infinite awareness, understanding, and insight
2 : possessed of universal or complete knowledge
You imply you believe God is omniscient, but you really don’t understand what it is you are saying. If God is omniscient, that means that God has total knowledge of what we consider the past, present and future.
When you agree with Pinnock that “aspects of the future, being unsettled, are not yet wholly known, even to God”, you are denying that God is omniscient. That, my friend, is blasphemy, and as you very well know, blasphemy is anything which derogates from the prerogatives of God. You need to do a lot more research before YOU can lecture ME on what blasphemes the one true God and what does not.
You wrongly assume that God views time the same way we view it. Time is a measurement just as 36 inches is a measurement. Measurements are not things, but you need things to measure.. If you knew the difference between the being of God, Who is eternal, or immeasurable, and time, which IS measurable, then you could see why you are tying yourself all up in knots. Time is meaningless without things to measure. How do you propose to measure God?
Also, you do not have to be a Calvinist to reject open-ended theology, you simply need common sense. By espousing that theology, it necessitates the rejection of God’s attributes, because when you reject one attribute, the domino theory takes effect because once you take away one of God’s perfections, it affects all of God’s perfections. For example, if you say that God is not omniscient because God has no knowledge of the future, then that impacts the attribute of omnipotence, etc., etc., etc.
Once you make God less than absolute perfection, the road to hell gets steeper and steeper. May you reverse your direction before you find it impossible to do so. Although God’s mercy is infinite, we must never forget that God’s justice is also infinite.
Airy
To godrulz
Once again, you try to obfuscate the issue. Perhaps if you understood what omniscient means, you wouldn’t be making blasphemous statements.
From Webster’s dictionary:
Main Entry: om·ni·scient
Pronunciation: -sh&nt
Function: adjective
Etymology: New Latin omniscient-, omnisciens, back-formation from Medieval Latin omniscientia
1 : having infinite awareness, understanding, and insight
2 : possessed of universal or complete knowledge
You imply you believe God is omniscient, but you really don’t understand what it is you are saying. If God is omniscient, that means that God has total knowledge of what we consider the past, present and future.
When you agree with Pinnock that “aspects of the future, being unsettled, are not yet wholly known, even to God”, you are denying that God is omniscient. That, my friend, is blasphemy, and as you very well know, blasphemy is anything which derogates from the prerogatives of God. You need to do a lot more research before YOU can lecture ME on what blasphemes the one true God and what does not.
You wrongly assume that God views time the same way we view it. Time is a measurement just as 36 inches is a measurement. Measurements are not things, but you need things to measure.. If you knew the difference between the being of God, Who is eternal, or immeasurable, and time, which IS measurable, then you could see why you are tying yourself all up in knots. Time is meaningless without things to measure. How do you propose to measure God?
Also, you do not have to be a Calvinist to reject open-ended theology, you simply need common sense. By espousing that theology, it necessitates the rejection of God’s attributes, because when you reject one attribute, the domino theory takes effect because once you take away one of God’s perfections, it affects all of God’s perfections. For example, if you say that God is not omniscient because God has no knowledge of the future, then that impacts the attribute of omnipotence, etc., etc., etc.
Once you make God less than absolute perfection, the road to hell gets steeper and steeper. May you reverse your direction before you find it impossible to do so. Although God’s mercy is infinite, we must never forget that God’s justice is also infinite.
Airy
Time can be measured in various ways: seconds, moons, sleeps, minutes, hours, days, etc. Even without our earthly measures of time, sequence/duration/succession was experienced by the eternal God. If He did not, then fellowship, communication, love, will, intellect, emotion were not possible for God from all eternity. Time is duration. The measure of time is not pertinent to the everlasting God.
You still do not understand that God knowing the future as possible rather than actual is not a denial of omniscience. He correctly knows reality as it is. The future is not there to know. If it was, He would know it. Because He does not know the unknowable, this is not inconsistent with God's infinite knowledge. I concur with Webster's definition, which does not specify whether God knows the future as a fixed certainty or an open possibility.
When you identify your faith background or lack thereof, and when you understand the alternate view (even if you reject it), I will continue to consider your comments. At the moment, you have tunnel vision and are rejecting something you do not understand.
I don't remember the verse, most likely because it is worded differently in the KJV than in the NIV, but I remember reading somewhere that God alone is immortal. So I have trouble reconciling the idea that souls are not immortal with the idea that hell is eternal. Actually, we already know hell is thrwon into the lake of fire. And so are the souls of those who were in hell. But you know what I mean. I have trouble believing that souls remain in the lake of fire forever. And based on may OT laws, it seems that God's justice would call for the destruction of these souls. As well as the destruction of satan and the demons. Also, the Bible tells us that when death is thrown into the lake of fire it is destroyed. As is hell, obviously, since it is no longer useful. Why not everything else that is thrown into the lake of fire? What's the point in keeping any of it around?
Methinks the AiryHead is afraid to address my questions.